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Last year, Craig David was one of those delightful Glastonbury oddities on the line-up. The pop-garage superstar had such a prodigious rise at the turn of the millennium when he was just 17 that by 20 he had become a figure of fun, mocked relentlessly by Leigh Francis in his rubber-faced comedy, Bo' Selecta. In fact, the show's entire name was inspired by one of David's catchphrases.

In the decade that followed, David retreated from UK public life and moved to Miami, where he developed TS5, the house party-based club night that would become his vehicle back to musical credibility. When he stormed the Sonic Stage in 2016 and entertained a record breaking crowd of 20,000, David proved that he was no longer the butt of anyone's joke.

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But David's comeback isn't entirely due to fortuitous nostalgia. Far from it: with TS5, he's been honing his ear for a smart sample and a clever remix, often between his classics - such as breakthrough solo single Fill Me In and ballad Rendezvous - and the biggest pop hits of the moment, notably Justin Bieber's What Do Ü Mean. His ability to freestyle and rap at lightning speed, never properly demonstrated in the first flush of his career, have had a chance to shine and found approval from BBC Radio 1Xtra and members of the grime community, not just the new force in pop but the one responsible for motivating the young electorate to deliver the highest voting turnout in 25 years last month.

David astutely bundled this heady mix of old and new into his Pyramid Stage set with astonishing aplomb. After 30 minutes of crooning favourites, he jumped behind a set of TS5-branded decks to dish up a crowd-pleasing DJ set that was interspersed with his own vocal licks. The whole thing proved why David has managed to make such a comeback without changing his schtick: perfect RnB freestyling delivered with pure sincerity.

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Because there is no pop star out there more earnest than Craig David. He spent the entire intro to Rise and Fall, a 2003 collaboration with Sting, with his hand on his heart, his brow furrowed with intense emotion.

This was a severe level of cheese. But, like Lionel Ritchie, who took the Golden Oldie slot in 2015 before him, David just about gets away with it because it's quite apparent he's just being himself. There are very few British singers who could deploy as much feeling, repeatedly, into the words "making love", and not feel vaguely self-conscious.

And, while it wasn't a Wednesday, Thursday or a Friday, there was a considerable level of love for David being produced among the jam-packed crowd, who were delighted with his gloriously improbable return.